Narrow-band Personal Communications Systems (NPCS), or alternatively two-way paging, is an ideal platform for extending electronic mail (E-mail) or other types of data transmission to wireless devices such as pagers. An E-mail sender can use existing E-mail tools and the existing E-mail address of a subscriber to transmit data to the subscriber. The E-mail subscriber can designate, in his E-mail account, that E-mail communications be forwarded to the subscriber's two-way pager. The E-mail subscriber, upon receiving the E-mail forwarded from his E-mail account to the two-way pager can send a response back to the sender using the E-mail address of the sender that is included as part of standard E-mail protocols.
More specifically, the NPCS system connects to an existing E-mail network through an E-mail gateway or interface module. The E-mail gateway uses E-mail protocols, such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to receive E-mail data packages from senders and to return responses to the senders from the E-mail recipients. If the E-mail recipient has designated that his E-mail is to be forwarded to a two-way pager, the E-mail gateway processes the E-mail data package and forwards it to paging infrastructure using existing paging protocols.
A major problem with the above interface between E-mail systems and two-way pagers is that the E-mail sender can transmit an excessively large message or other data to the two-way pager of the recipient. The receipt of this excessively large amount of data can be costly to the recipient and can cause RF channel delays and unpredictable RF statistics.
One current method attempting to handle the problem of excessive data transmission is by limiting the message size transmittable to the two-way pager. This method has problems. First, the recipient has no knowledge that the message they receive on their two-way pager has been truncated. The recipient may thus not be aware that additional data was not received. Furthermore, the recipient has no control over the data truncation besides agreeing to allow it to occur.
Another existing method is to allow larger data transmissions to occur, but to charge a premium for data transmission over a predetermine size. Because there is no truncation of the data, the recipient must pay a premium for larger data packages, even if they are "junk E-mail." Additionally, because truncation is lacking, the larger data transmissions will cause RF channel delays and unpredictable RF statistics.
A need thus exists for a method of transmission of large amounts of data to a wireless device, such as a pager, where no large amounts of data are transmitted in a single occurrence on the RF channel.
A further need exists for the above-type of method in which potentially large amounts of data are divided into smaller data sub-packages that can be better controlled by the two-way paging infrastructure.
An additional need exists for the above-type of method in which the prevention of transmission of large amounts of data results in the receipt of messages by all two-way pager subscribers in a timely manner.
Yet another need exists for the above-type of method in which the protocol for the division of the large amounts of data into smaller sub-packages, such as the size of the smaller data sub-packages, can be varied.
An additional need exists for the above-type of method in which the two-way pager user can control the number of the data sub-packages sent, and therefore the cost, if the charge of the data transmission is on a data-amount basis.
A further need exists for the above-type of message in which the additional data sub-package sent provides sufficient information for the two-way pager user to ascertain the importance of the message, and thus of the subsequent data sub-packages that have not been sent.